VLADIMIR Putin was prepared to use nuclear weapons at the moment he seized Crimea a year ago, he admitted last night.

The Russian leader, who has not been seen for 11 days, made the revelation on a taped documentary amid feverish rumours of illness, a potential coup, or his Olympic gymnast "lover" Alina Kabayeva giving birth to a child in Switzerland.

The move would have been tantamount to Russia provoking all out World War Three - with atomic weapons.

The President said: "We were ready to do it." Major cities in Britain - along with the US - are seen as a key targets of the Kremlin's nuclear arsenal.

"I talked with colleagues and told them that this [Crimea] is our historic territory."

He told the TV documentary that Crimea was "our historic territory", even though under international law it remains Ukrainian.

But he claimed the West could have intervened militarily when he seized Crimea, hence his readiness to put his massive nuclear arsenal on alert. It was reported last night that the real reason behind Putin's unusual absence was that he had suffered a bout of flu.

But it is only the latest of many conflicting explanations. He was reported by opposition TV channel Dozhd TV to be secluded in a forest hideaway, at one of many luxury official residences, on Lake Valdai in Novgorod region.

"No comment, the topic is closed," he said. Putin is due in St Petersburg today to meet Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev, although in one of many bizarre episodes in recent days footage of the supposed summit was aired last week by a TV channel.

AFP

The footage of Putin was actually filmed months ago

The crisis over his disappearance will deepen if he fails to appear this week at a number of events to commemorate the restoration of Crimea to Russia. Putin suggested in the documentary that Yanukovych could have saved himself from a coup if he had used weapons on protesters. "I do not want to evaluate his work," said Putin, who rescued the toppled leader and gave him a safe haven in Russia.

"He said 'I could not sign an order on use of weaponry. I could not bring myself to do it.'

"Can we blame him for it? I cannot say. And I do not want to do it. I don't think I have a right to do so.

AFP

Pro-Moscow head of Crimea Sergei Aksyonov, Crimean State Council Vladimir Konstantinov and others

"Whether it is good or bad, the consequences of inactivity are grave. This is clear." Putin said as quoted by the VGTRK television, which broadcast the documentary on Sunday.

He grabbed Crimea because he could not "leave this area and the people who live there to whims of fate".

They would have been overrun by a "nationalist bulldozer" from Kiev, he said in newly-released Russian documentary "Crimea. Way back home".

One former loyalist said yesterday that Putin could face the same fate as the last Tsar of Russia, shot by a Bolshevik firing squad, or ex-Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic, who died in The Hague awaiting trial. Igor Strelkov - a key military commander of rebel fighters in Crimea and eastern Ukraine - also noted that 15 March was the date of the abdication of monarch Nicholas II, 98 years ago. One report citing military historian Strelkov said "that Vladimir Putin might follow the destiny of Emperor Nicholas II, who was shot in 1918.

"Another path for Putin, according to Strelkov is a repetition of final days of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, who died in 2006 in jail in The Hague."